Hillary's Campaign Defends Yearly Kos and Slams Bill O'Reilly

Posted by Guest Blogger at 6:02 AM on July 19, 2007.

This post, written by Jonathan Singer, originally appeared on MyDD

With the risk of being all Clinton, all the time this morning on MyDD, I want to pass along a statement posted by the Clinton campaign on Daily Kos this morning defending the Yearly Kos convention and taking Bill O'Reilly to task for using comments out of context to malign the netroots.

HOWARD WOLFSON:

"Blogs are the 21st Century version of the public square. Sen. Clinton does not agree with everything said on Daily Kos, but isolating a few comments as a way to smear a blog frequented by hundreds of thousands of people a day is wrong. Certainly you would understand this when you look at some of the extreme views guests on your show have advocated over the years. Here are just a few examples:

"You've hosted Michael Savage, who has called MLK Jr. Day a "racket" designed to steal `white males' birthright.'

"You've hosted David Horowitz, who has called Democrats `apologists for terrorists.'

"You've hosted, Ann Coulter who said of the 9/11 widows: `I have never seen people enjoying their husbands' death so much.'

"It wouldn't be reasonable to attribute these views to you and it's not reasonable for you to attribute every comment on Daily Kos to everyone who attends the YearlyKos convention. Sen. Clinton is looking forward to attending YearlyKos."

Thanks

Howard Wolfson

Communications Director, Clinton Campaign

Let's start with a caveat before we get into the substance of this post. Hillary Clinton was the last major candidate to announce her participate in the Yearly Kos convention. While it's certainly good news and a sign of good faith that she agreed to participate in the presidential forum next month, had the other candidates waited as long to agree to attend the forum never would have happened. (In other words, kudos to John Edwards, Barack Obama and the others who long before signed on.)

That said, this statement strikes exactly the right tone. The Clinton campaign is going to bat for the Yearly Kos convention, and to an extent Daily Kos and the progressive blogosphere as well, while at the same time attacking Bill O'Reilly. Not many campaigns show a willingness to stand by an organization when the words of some of its members are bent and twisted out of context in such a way that it makes it seem far out of the mainstream.

I might not use the word "detente" to describe this move, because there hasn't exactly been a war raging between the Clinton campaign and the netroots as of late. But it is a fairly shrewd political move by the campaign, one that, however superficial, could nonetheless engender some positive feelings towards Clinton within those attending the convention.

Tagged as: o'reilly, blogs, hillary clinton, yearly kos